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Can you be a feminist without being vegan? The answer is no, if you understand speciesism. But let's first begin decades ago – where a master mass manipulator shaped human consciousness, behavior, and beliefs.
Edward Bernays. Heard of him? Usually, the answer is no. Bernays - the “public relations” specialist; the manipulator of masses, generations and societies. The manipulator of these masses, on behalf of governments and corporations.
Edward Bernays and his “Torches of Freedom” campaign – launching and simultaneously incorporating consumerism with feminism. Of course, all his campaigns centered on manipulating humans into consumer automatons, for that was why governments and corporations worked with him - and only with him. The need to consume was masterfully created through emotional links; such as the belief in, and desire for, “freedom”.
“How can we get a larger market for our product?” Tobacco companies ask.
“We need to make women feel like smoking is socially acceptable, but how?!”
Well, damnit if Edward Bernays didn’t have just the answer. How else to achieve this but by touting cigarettes as a weapon of freedom, of course! Anything in the name of emancipation and freedom is quickly and passionately capable of enlisting a most fervent following.
Alas - Consumerism: masked as feelings of belonging, freedom and emancipation. And 90 years later, society remains on the same conveyer belt that Bernays, and the powerful corporations and US government he worked for, endeavored (and succeeded) to place them on.
Consumerism: As a means of self-identification with a topic, meant to elicit belonging; conquest; freedom.
“’Group of Girls Puff at Cigarettes as a Gesture of “Freedom”’, read the front page of the New York Times on April 1st, 1929. It was no April Fools’ joke; rather, this spectacle of liberated, smoking women was one of Bernays’ most celebrated publicity stunts.”
Indeed it makes you wonder – just how deep does the patriarchal manipulation lie that generations of women have felt “cool”, “emancipated” liberated and free, because they are smoking “just like the guys do” - doing just what a guy told them to do? Wearing pant suits, “just like the guys do” - shopping and consuming, just like a man told them to do?
Must we reduce our ‘selves’ to simple, meaningless external actions? Is this feminism? To associate with materialities?
Feminism and Edward Bernays. A man who – for the purposes of consumerism, mass control, and mass manipulations (again, all on behest of the government and corporations!) applied “Gustave Le Bon’s principles of mass psychology, Wilfred Trotter’s herd instinct theses and, above all, the hidden drives of human beings that Sigmund Freud spoke about” (Sigmund Freud was Bernays’ uncle) - to sell a product. To indoctrinate a belief. To manipulate masses.
Regrettably, his influence is over-arching and long lasting; they have succeeded in controlling and manipulating completely:
“[They] got ya number than number than numb
Empty ya pockets son; they got you thinkin that, What ya need is what they sellin
Make you think that buyin is rebellin” - Zack de la Rocha
Humanity: Easily led, malleable and inducible.
Feminism, a trend like anything else, was reduced long ago to consumerism which continues to this day, insidiously through celebrities who pretend to push equality of the sexes and races – all while taking a lower pay than their male counterparts. (citation at end of essay)
Feminism, really and simply, is about wanting equality, safety, and respect for women. Feminism is not lighting a cigarette, wearing certain clothes, (still consumerism!), buying certain brands (see the pattern?), or buying someone’s CD who makes you feel like you matter - and the list continues.
They have successfully and skillfully passed feminism off as, and reduced it to, a simple act; buy this, wear that; say this, use that. Beyonce may be an “independent woman” releasing “black is king” but her net worth is far less than her husband’s. Her, and every singe other celebrity woman, is earning less than their male "equals". (Though the concern for this topic seems to be largely non-existent; there is usually only silence from all celebrities. Perhaps as long as there is any payment, any money is contentment enough?)
This play on race, equality, the lack thereof, and the sexes, which are really just products sold as ideas, is marketing's favorite tool. The topics appeal to ego, self, identification, fitting in, and contribute to dogmatic - and many times patriarchal narratives. The first department stores were described as a "'fantasy world of escape from dull domesticity' that became a second home for many women."
Seeing the problem there?
Feminism needs no existential debate or explanation. Feminism is only and simply about equality, safety and respect for women. The media - encompassing celebrities, writers, musicians, politicians, news channels, advertisers and so on - depict feminism as a myriad of things but its truth. They market and sell things as ideas to identify with. They market "steaks" as "manly foods" - further perpetuating stereotypes and sexist attitudes - and perfumes with "pretty girls" dancing or "living it up" in random clubs.
By their reasoning, steak is "manly" and a "perfume" is for all the "adventurous" "free" women.
One can not be accepted without accepting the other, you see, for the information - the false perception - still comes from the same source. It cannot be said the media is wrong there - for saying only men eat steak - but they are right, here, because "I do feel 'free and cool and powerful' when I wear this perfume". That is simply buying into a narrative that makes you feel good, but it is inaccurate and continues to be sexist.
There is nothing to be consumed, or gained from consumerism, that will translate into feminism. However, there is much to stop consuming to make you a feminist. Time and again the greatest actions we can make to free ourselves lies in non-action; non-participation; non-acquiescence.
Through non-action, non-participation and non-acquiescence we arrive at the link between feminism and veganism. How could consuming certain products be any different? It is still consumerism! Let's explain:
If identifying with what feminism is: equality, safety and respect for females, it is then hypocritical to not be vegan. The explanation and answer lies in simplistic terms with consuming dairy, in every and any form. After explaining, it will be clear why there is no true feminism without veganism.
Do you eat ice cream? Pizza? Cheese? Do you drink “milk”? Do you eat chocolate? Do you eat doughnuts without checking the label first to see if they are the ones made without milk?
If you do even one of these things, then you are paying for dairy products. By paying for dairy products, and any product containing dairy, money that has been earned - usually through quite unenjoyable means - is willfully, and thereby consensually, given to an industry that exploits the female body.
This is precisely why feminism is completely impossible in a world of constant contribution to the exploitation of a female's natural body processes.
If you pay to exploit the female body, once you know the workings of the dairy industry, where would you stand morally? Ethically? Is it in line with values you claim to care about?
Dairy is an exploitation of the natural female process for financial gain. Cows do not produce milk unless they are pregnant.
How do cows get pregnant? How do they maintain factory farms of this scale? (video of one of many factory farms in US, nothing graphic just row after row of confined, day old calves, separated from their mothers) Do you suggest this product and its derivatives, available in this scale, every day, for years, is created by allowing cows to mate when they are ready?
Standard practice is the way all farms operate around the world, and are by law, allowed to continue to do so. Standard practice on dairy farms - the way things must be done to ensure the business and farm continues to operate - is to artificially inseminate cows. To rape them. It’s the only way to get mass, quick production, which is necessary in order to run the “business” effectively and prosperously.
Once pregnant, their milk is taken non-stop. Cows carry their babies inside them as long as human mothers do – for nine months. At the end of the nine months, the calf is born.
Standard practice is to then take the calf, 24/48 hours after birth, and send it to slaughter. Any “product” – milk – going to her baby (which is what the milk is made for) is less product to sell. Thousands of calves drinking their mother’s milk would result in a huge “loss of product”, as is easy to see. Best to eliminate them from the equation.
Ergo, we then have "veal". So valuable – the flesh of a young baby killed fresh out of the mother’s womb. It takes its place on fancy bistro menus as a delicacy.
The reality is, once you know how the industry works, continuing to consume dairy of any kind, in any way, is paying for the abuse and exploitation of the female body. Cows did not ask to be treated this way or placed in this position, and as a woman, you can not consensually pay for the raping, incarceration, killing of their babies, and the abuse of their natural body, and believe to be a feminist or respectful of women's bodies. Neither can you take part in this as a man, but it is largely women who tout the flag of "FemInSM".
A cow (and goats, any type of dairy) - a female, sentient being - does not deserve to have their unavoidable and unchangeable natural body exploited for financial gain.
By refusing to engage - refusing to consume - already we win. There is no need to then consume the "vegan" equivalent of the product. Cheese is not necessary for survival or even enjoyment, really. Would the Buddha or Jesus throw a hissy fit if he could not have some cheese? It's time for perspective.
Giving money to an exploitative industry, says it is OK for it to continue; it is OK for it to cause the type of pain it causes. It is OK to proceed with these methods of brutal exploitation to justify taste, and financial gain.
Unfortunately, if you consume dairy, you are not a feminist. In fact, as explained, most if not all and any, type of consumption will never translate into feminism. Though it could sound very cruel, the truth is that it is important to align all our actions, as best as possible, with our beliefs.
It is hypocritical, and inaccurate, to fight against "oppression" but through multiple daily choices, contribute to it. It is hypocritical to state, "Aw, I just love animals" but continue to pay multiple times a day for their enslavement and suffering.
Yes, it sounds cruel. Yes, it sounds judgemental. I was just as upset by this when someone said this to me; but now I am here saying it too.
To quote Led Zeppelin’s manager “As long as there’s another nickel to be drained, by exploiting” – well, he says Led Zeppelin – I say the female body. But really, what difference is there? A marketable machine is a marketable machine, right?
Citations and readings below
https://www.onegreenplanet.org/vegan-food/the-5-most-deceptive-dairy-campaigns-that-ever-existed/
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Pauline_Maclaran/publication/270800070_Marketing_and_feminism_in_historic_perspective/links/5614efea08ae983c1b419b35.pdf
https://www.historytoday.com/miscellanies/original-influencer